Channing Tatum bares his soul in ‘Magic Mike,’ drawing on own past in story about male strippers

Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh wants you to know that there is more to his new movie Magic Mike than the trailers and TV ads would have you believe.

“I really like the marketing campaign,” says the Oscar-winning director of Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven and Erin Brockovich. “I was the one who wanted to sell the movie like it’s fun, because it is mostly fun.

“It may not be exactly what people expect. But I don’t think the film is different in a way that’s antagonistic to the audience.”

Then, after a pause, Soderbergh addresses the elephant in the room.

“Look, this is not a movie that is exclusively aimed at women and gay men. To what extent are women going to be able to talk their boyfriends into going? I don’t know. But I don’t think guys will be sitting in the theater thinking, ‘This is torture.’ Ten minutes into the movie, they’ll realize they are not being excluded from this experience at all.”